the end of infinity without you
by mutemelodyx
Summary: Maybe he and Kakashi were always meant to be apart. Opposing sides in an unending conflict. The heavens and the earth fighting in one eternal storm. / "Please," Kakashi says, his voice so close to desperate, and Obito knows that's exactly what he is. "Don't."


**This was originally posted on my Ao3 as a birthday gift for SansThePacifist on that site.**

**[Soulmate AU: Nothing between us. (The one where your soulmate can always hear what you do not say.)]**

**also yes the title is lyrics from "the last of the real ones" with a purposeful mistake**

* * *

The rain falls.

The wind is whipping around them, racing in between the trees. It's violent, more reminiscent to running from enemy shinobi than children playing tag. It's pressing up against them, like the hugs he always saw the other kids get from their parents. It's suffocating him, like the first time he looked into the other boy's eyes. The first time he saw his other half.

The rain falls.

Obito had fallen, once.

Well, Kakashi had been the one that fell, but Obito had _fallen. _Fallen, and landed so deep underground that he had questioned whether the sun had ever existed at all. Too far away for anyone to hear the shouts that he had kept up until his voice was sore.

But he had tore his way back up, and when he found the half of himself he had left behind, he had carved a bloody path around it as if the corpses would cover his tracks.

But now, here they both are.

Kakashi looks at him, his gravity-defying hair plastered awkwardly down due to the sheer force of the rain. It makes him look like a wet dog and, in any other scenario, Obito would be laughing. Teasing while the raindrops roll down his goggles, shielding his face from the raging storm.

But doesn't wear goggles anymore, and he's not laughing.

He's not, because they're not anywhere else, doing anything else. They're _here, _both of them, and the rain is falling.

"Obito," Kakashi chokes out the name, and they're so far apart that it almost gets lost to the storm. It doesn't, though, and it jars Obito enough because he has to think about the last time someone's called him that. The last time he actually spoke with someone outside of battle, the last time he spoke to someone who would say his name with such care and _emotion._

Kakashi takes a few staggering steps through the mud towards him, as if Obito's very presence struck an invisible blow and now he's wounded. Maybe it had - his face is wet, Obito knows, in a way that is not caused by the torrential downpour around them.

His own scarred face is on display, not hidden under the mask that he has taken to wearing over the last year. He is also unshielded to the weather, but his face is not wet like Kakashi's.

(His tears were shed and dried a long time ago, back when he was trapped where the rain could not reach.)

So he stands there, without a mask. Because no, he is not hiding. Not from this. Not from him.

Not anymore.

He doesn't reply to Kakashi's words. He doesn't react to the pain and hurt and guilt and every other emotion he knows is swirling around inside of the boy - no, _man. _They haven't been boys for quite some time now - standing across from him.

He doesn't acknowledge all the emotion, because he knows it all too well.

He's felt it all before. The rawness, the way it feels when your entire world is flipped upside down and sent into a tailspin. The feeling that everything was so chaotic and violently flying around like raindrops in a storm. The numbness that follows while watching it all tear away, like you're standing in the calm in the center of a typhoon.

He inherently knows what Kakashi is feeling, can see everything he does not say aloud, but he knows no words that can make him feel better. He doesn't know if they exist.

Kakashi stops several feet away, just out of reaching distance. That could change within an instant, though, and they both know it. Kakashi's been a prodigy since birth, and Obito's been through hell this past year and wasn't necessarily a slacker before that. The distance between them is basically nothing, if one of them were to strike.

If one of them decided to be the lightning in the midst of this storm they share.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi says, his voice thick like mud in a rainstorm.

Obito does not need to ask what he is apologizing for. He's never needed to ask for clarity from Kakashi, and despite the time they have spent apart, he does not need to now.

Obito shakes his head.

"It's not your fault." He tells him, and it's true.

It's Madara's, for his whole damn plan. For not letting Obito die like he should have, for deciding to manipulate and slowly kill him rather than just letting the events take their course. For making him long enough to become the villain.

Thankfully, Madara's gone, long dead, and his plan was ripped up and scattered to the wind. A seal on Obito's heart could never work, because Obito only holds half of it. He's just one piece of a whole.

A seal could never make one soulmate turn against the other.

Kakashi doesn't respond to that, though. Both of his eyes are visible, the one holding the sharingan glowing slightly brighter than the other. It was a weak light in the middle of the raging storm around them, but it's a reminder of the bond they had once shared, if only for a little while.

Perhaps that had been a sign of the inevitable. Kakashi and Obito were always doomed to end in tragedy, whether they destroyed each other or destroyed themselves for each other.

Maybe Kannabi Bridge was meant to be a mercy, to end things before they ever properly started.

Maybe he and Kakashi were always meant to be apart. Opposing sides in an unending conflict. The heavens and the earth fighting in one eternal storm.

He turns to leave, but suddenly there's resistance. He doesn't turn, doesn't need to, to see Kakashi gripping his forearm so tightly that his knuckles must be turning white underneath his gloves.

"Please," Kakashi says, his voice so close to desperate, and Obito knows that's exactly what he is. "Don't."

_Don't leave me. _Is what he is really saying, Obito knows. He's been able to read between Kakashi's lines since the moment they met.

Since the moment Kakashi called him a loser, and through their soulmate bond Obito could only here Kakashi calling him priceless, and he had cried on the spot.

But Obito isn't crying now, Kakashi is. Kakashi looks like the one weathering the brunt of this storm, while Obito

His lips quirk up in what should be a smile, but it tugs at his skin oddly, and maybe Obito doesn't remember what that is anymore.

"You're weak." He tells the man clinging to him, and it feels so wrong to see Kakashi this fragile, but the touch feels so _right._

_We're stronger together. _Is what he does not say, and it is what Kakashi hears.

The grip doesn't loosen, but it does readjust. Kakashi is no longer clinging, but he's bracing himself. Prepared for the road ahead of them that they will face, together.

Obito's remaining natural eyes turns and twists, and the world around them distorts. Obito meets Kakashi's eyes.

"Crybaby," He calls him, not sure how to put his feelings into words as he moves.

It doesn't matter, though. The message will always be received loud and clear.

Kakashi smiles, and it's the first time in a long time that Obito's seen that telltale crinkle of the eyes that betrays what's under the mask.

He's seen under that mask before. He's seen under all of Kakashi's masks, looked behind all of his walls.

Reality warps and changes around them, and the falling rain becomes lost to them as they themselves fall into a new world entirely.

They fall, but they fall together.


End file.
